The anatomy of coercive practices in healthcare settings.

Background: In healthcare settings, there can be a fine distinction between genuine performance management and vexatious complaints occurring in the context of bullying. The most common manifestation of such behaviour involves repetitive interpersonal abusive behaviours within the context of a power hierarchy. These interactions might well be experienced as bullying behaviour; however, the interpersonal dynamics underpinning such behaviours remains largely unexplored.

A Qualitative Study of Adolescents from Refugee Backgrounds Living in Australia: Identity and Resettlement.

Identity formation among young people from refugee backgrounds is complex, as it occurs while they are both integrating into a novel cultural landscape and navigating the intricacies of adolescence. The present study explored sense of identity and experiences among refugee youth in the context of resettlement. Nineteen young people (15-18 years) from refugee backgrounds, settled in Brisbane, Australia, took part in the study.

The Importance of Local and Global Social Ties for the Mental Health and Well-Being of Recently Resettled Refugee-Background Women in Australia.

Social connections are foundational to the human condition and are inherently disrupted when people are forcibly displaced from their home countries. At a time of record high global forced migration, there is value in better understanding how refugee-background individuals engage theirsocial supports or ties in resettlement contexts. A mixed methods research design aimed to understand the complexities of how 104 refugee-background women experienced their social networks in the first few months of resettlement in Australia.

Learning clinical skills: an ecological perspective.

The pedagogy underpinning clinical psychology training is often reliant upon the acquisition and transmission of knowledge and the practice of skills. The dominant paradigm in the training of clinical psychologists emphasises competence-based training drawing upon a scientist practitioner model of practice, often underpinned by knowledge of evidence-based interventions. Little has changed over the past 40 years.

Development and Validation of the Postsex Experience (P-SES) Scale.

Introduction: There is little systematized research on the postsex phase of the sexual cycle, due in part to the absence of literature on the period immediately following sexual activity.

Aim: The paper describes the development and validation of the Postsex Experience Scale (P-SES), an instrument designed to measure the psychological dimensions of the postsex period of the human sexual response cycle.

Methods: Scale development involved (a) item construction, selection, and subsequent validation through item analysis, and (b) a factor analysis of the item intercorrelations of the P-SES and the establishment of its factorial validity, based upon an online survey of 4,217 respondents.

Persistent psychological distress in resettled refugee women-at-risk at one-year follow-up: Contributions of trauma, post-migration problems, loss, and trust.

The mental health of women has been largely neglected in the refugee literature, notwithstanding the specific gender-related issues that confront women seeking asylum. Furthermore, a specific category of women, deemed to be women-at-risk, face particular challenges in their journey and resettlement process. This longitudinal study investigated psychological distress in refugee women-at-risk one year after resettlement in Australia.

Mechanisms of Change in Intensive Short-Term Dynamic Psychotherapy: Systematized Review.

Objective: Despite increasing evidence for the effectiveness of intensive short-term dynamic psychotherapy (ISTDP), evidence supporting the purported mechanisms of change in ISTDP is lacking. This systematized review aimed to describe the major theorized mechanisms of change in ISTDP, critically evaluate the emerging literature pertaining to its purported mechanisms, and explore directions for future research.

Methods: A systematized search of the literature was conducted by using online databases (PsychInfo, PubMed, EMBASE, and CINAHL).

Metacognitive approaches to the treatment of psychosis: a comparison of four approaches.

In light of increasing interest in metacognition and its role in recovery from psychosis, a range of new treatments focused on addressing metacognitive deficits have emerged. These include Metacognitive Therapy, Metacognitive Training, metacognitive insight and reflection therapy, and metacognitive interpersonal therapy for psychosis. While each of these treatments uses the term metacognitive, each differs in terms of their epistemological underpinnings, their structure, format, presumed mechanisms of action, and primary outcomes.

Recently resettled refugee women-at-risk in Australia evidence high levels of psychiatric symptoms: individual, trauma and post-migration factors predict outcomes.

Background: Despite increasing numbers of refugee women-at-risk being resettled and their potential vulnerability, there exists no empirical research into the psychiatric health of this unique subgroup with which to guide policy and practice. This research aimed to investigate psychiatric symptom status of a sample of refugee women-at-risk recently resettled in Australia, as well as factors contributing to symptoms of trauma, anxiety, depression, and somatization. The level of psychiatric symptomatology is compared to reference groups of women from Sudan and Burma, who entered Australia under the Humanitarian Entry Programme, and who did not meet criteria as women-at-risk.

Postcoital Dysphoria: Prevalence and Correlates Among Males.

Consensual sexual activity is believed to be associated with a positive emotional experience, however, postcoital dysphoria (PCD) is a counterintuitive phenomenon characterized by inexplicable feelings of tearfulness, sadness, or irritability following otherwise satisfactory consensual sexual activity. Prevalence of PCD has been reported among females, but not among males. The present study utilized an anonymous online questionnaire to examine the prevalence and correlates of PCD among an international sample including 1,208 male participants.

The Human-Nature Experience: A Phenomenological-Psychoanalytic Perspective.

Drawing upon phenomenology and psychoanalytic concepts, we explore and explicate participants' lived experience of the natural world. The authors draw upon Husserl's description of consciousness as intentionality and his later work on the life-world, in exploring experiences which provide a basis for a psychochoanalytic understanding of the human-nature experience. Unstructured interviews were undertaken with nine participants, each of whom regarded nature as being significant for their sense of wellbeing.

Psychometric Properties of the Multidimensional Loss Scale with Refugee Women-at-Risk Recently Arrived in Australia.

Refugee women-at-risk represent a distinct and vulnerable refugee population. We investigated the psychometric properties of the Multidimensional Loss Scale (MLS) with 104 women-at-risk, recently-arrived in Australia. Cross-sectional survey included: the MLS (indexing loss events and loss distress); Harvard Trauma Questionnaire (Indexing Trauma Events and Trauma Symptoms), and; Hopkins Symptom Checklist-37 (indexing anxiety, depression, and somatization symptoms).

Metacognitive Interpersonal Therapy for Personality Disorders Featuring Emotional Inhibition: A Multiple Baseline Case Series.

Metacognitive interpersonal therapy (MIT) is an integrative psychotherapeutic approach targeting personality disorders (PDs) featuring inhibition and avoidance. The current case series reports the outcome of a time-limited, 12-month MIT intervention for people with PDs featuring emotional inhibition. Seven participants were diagnosed with a PD on the basis of a structured clinical interview.

Individual, premigration and postsettlement factors, and academic achievement in adolescents from refugee backgrounds: A systematic review and model.

We have limited understanding of the precursors of academic achievement in resettled adolescents from refugee backgrounds. To date, no clear model has been developed to conceptualise the academic trajectories of adolescents from refugee backgrounds at postsettlement. The current review had two aims.

Transformations through Proximity Flying: A Phenomenological Investigation.

Participation in extreme sports has been linked to personal transformations in everyday life. Descriptions of lived experience resulting from transformative experiences are limited. Proximity flying, a relatively new discipline involving BASE jumping with a wingsuit where participants fly close to solid structures, is arguably one of the most extreme of extreme sports.

Behavioral activation in the treatment of metacognitive dysfunctions in inhibited-type personality disorders.

Behavioral interventions are proposed as a critical treatment component in psychotherapy for personality disorders. The current study explores behavioral interventions as a mechanism of change in Metacognitive Interpersonal Therapy, an integrative psychotherapy for personality disorders. The goals and implementation of behavioral principles are illustrated through the single case study of Roger, a 57-year-old man diagnosed with avoidant personality disorder and depressive personality disorder.

Long-term outcomes of Metacognitive Narrative Psychotherapy for people diagnosed with schizophrenia.

Objectives: This study investigated long-term outcomes of Metacognitive Narrative Psychotherapy. Previous studies have shown the approach to be effective in enhancing recovery and metacognition in people with a diagnosis of schizophrenia.

Design: A 2-year longitudinal follow-up case study design.

Therapist Reflective Functioning, Therapist Attachment Style and Therapist Effectiveness.

This study investigated the relationship between two therapist attributes (reflective functioning and attachment style) and client outcome. Twenty-five therapists treated a total of 1001 clients. Therapists were assessed for reflective functioning and attachment style using the Adult Attachment Interview and the Experiences in Close Relationships Scale.

Therapeutic conversations: Therapists' use of observational language contributes to optimal therapeutic outcomes.

Objective: Reflexivity is the process of critically examining one's own experience. Emerging literature suggests that reflexivity is a positive predictor of outcomes in psychotherapy. However, limited research has been conducted regarding therapists' use of reflexivity as a therapeutic technique.

Trainee-therapists are not all equal: Examination of therapeutic efficiency, effectiveness and early client dropout after 12 months of clinical training.

Objective: Contemporary research demonstrates the feasibility of assessing therapeutic performance of trainee-therapists through the use of objective measures of client treatment outcome. Further, significant variation between individual therapists based on their client treatment outcomes has been demonstrated. This study sets out to determine whether a reliable composite measure of therapeutic efficiency, effectiveness and early dropout can be developed and used to objectively compare trainee-therapists against each other.

Reawakening reflective capacity in the psychotherapy of schizophrenia: a case study.

Disturbed sense of self has long been identified as a common experience among people suffering with schizophrenia. More recently, metacognitive deficits have been found to be a stable and independent feature of schizophrenia that contributes to disturbed self-experience and impedes recovery. Individual psychotherapy designed to target poor metacognition has been shown to promote a more coherent sense of self and enhanced recovery in people with schizophrenia.

Enhancing sense of recovery and self-reflectivity in people with schizophrenia: a pilot study of Metacognitive Narrative Psychotherapy.

Objectives: This study investigated the effectiveness of an innovative, manualized psychotherapy aimed at enhancing recovery and self-experience in people with schizophrenia, Metacognitive Narrative Psychotherapy.

Design: Treatment effects were assessed using a mixed methodology. Data were quantitatively assessed using a single-sample, pre- and post-therapy design and qualitatively assessed using a case-study methodology.

Sexual desire, erectile dysfunction and the biomedicalization of sex in older heterosexual men.

Aim: To examine sexual desire in older age and the use of pharmaceuticals for sexual enhancement in the context of erectile dysfunction.

Background: The ability of the older person to fulfil sexual desire has not been well supported in Western society.

Design: The paper draws on themes that emerged during a phenomenological study of sexual desire in older age.

A systematic review of naturalistic interventions in refugee populations.

Naturalistic interventions with refugee populations examine outcomes following mental health interventions in existing refugee service organisations. The current review aimed to examine outcomes of naturalistic interventions and quality of the naturalistic intervention literature in refugee populations with the view to highlight the strengths and limitations of naturalistic intervention studies. Database search was conducted using the search terms 'refugee', 'asylum seeker', 'treatment', 'therapy' and 'intervention.